“Octavio”
from the album Rose City
2009
iTunes
One of the reasons people are so fascinated by husband-and-wife bands (or former-husband-and-wife bands) is that we hope that the elusive magic that keeps people together or the visceral drama that tears them apart is audible somewhere in their three-minute pop nuggets. We’re hoping to be a fly on the wall of their indie rock domicile. And though those sorts of bands — from Yo La Tengo and Low to the White Stripes and Quasi — release wonderful music, we are rarely given an actual glimpse into the intimacy of the relationship that crafted it. Viva Voce, a Portland-via-Alabama spousal duo, is one such group.
On their four previous records, Viva Voce gave us stomping stoner anthems and warmly jangling pop, all crafted with an incisive eye for melodic detail. But on their latest offering, Kevin and Anita Robinson have not only pared things down, writing and recording everything for Rose City in less than a month, but built things up as well, adding two additional members to flesh out their lineup. The result is a fresh-sounding collection that feels easy and unpretentious yet urgent, an album that is markedly different from its heavier 2006 predecessor, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, but one that continues its organic, imaginative bent. And though its songs may not explicitly deal with life in the Robinson’s marriage (sadly, there’s no hit single called “Honey, Take Out the Trash”), they definitely give voyeuristic listeners the feeling of a couple letting two new people into their insular world and offer songs that pulse with the immediacy of their off-the-cuff creation.
The album opens with a surprising wallop of 1990s alt.radio rockness, as the glammy chug and reverberating riffs of “Devotion” call to mind both the slick pop aggression of Garbage and the theatrical guitar bravado of Jane’s Addiction. It’s strange to hear Viva Voce trying on a guise that is, at once, so straightforwardly rock (without any psychedelic or countrified influences) and polished to such glossy sheen. But lest you think the entire album is going to wallow in ’90s nostalgia, the collection hits its stride on third track “Octavio,“ when it slows down to revel less in manic guitar pomp and more in Kevin’s playful rhythms and Anita’s dreamy vocals.
Here, the key to Viva Voce’s success — long assumed to be Anita’s guitar prowess and the interplay between the percussive husband and his melodic wife — is her gilded coo. She has a limber voice that can wring the same sort of girlish, sassy flirtation from its cords as Jenny Lewis or Emily Haines, yet it’s also adept at the sort of airy, hushed lilt that makes Chan Marshall and Feist so captivating. And given the space it deserves, her gently ethereal voice can become a track’s guiding instrument, either when harmonizing with herself (as on “Good as Gold”) or melting over the casual, deep-voiced delivery of her spouse (as on “Midnight Sun,” the spacey, 1960s-tinged track that features the loveliest guitar melody of the entire collection).
The Robinson’s country-ish work as Blue Giant, another of the duo’s musical projects, has obviously crept into their songwriting subconscious, coloring the western soundtrack guitars of “Red Letter Day” and the dusty cowpoke vibe of the surf guitars on “Flora.” But Viva Voce smartly use such rustic touches just as flavoring, never straying too far from their gauzy rock roots. So though twangy electric guitar flourishes lurk under the warm piano vamp of “The Slow Fade”, its repetitive descending melody — which actually recalls an unplugged version of Nirvana’s “In Bloom”— makes it feel more like a rock ‘n’ roll torch song than a rootsy barnburner.
Rose City, an album named for the band’s adopted hometown (featuring a title track on which a homesick Anita longs for the rain and glut of bands “in the town I love”) and recorded in the Robinson’s new home studio, is the epitome of “homemade.” And that’s a good thing. Created in mere weeks, it doesn’t sound fussy or fussed over, and manages the tricky balance of audible intimacy without crappy bedroom acoustics. So for anyone curious about what goes on chez Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, the answer is clear: lots of music making.